Rhythm of Aiqing Reef

Reef is a short poem by Ai Qing, with only two sections and eight sentences. However, this short lyric poem, which consists of eight sentences, uses a variety of writing techniques such as analogy and symbol, creating a song-like melody, picturesque scenery, endless imagination and profound meaning.

Judging from the sound language, this poem adopts "free verse". In terms of sound characteristics, we don't pay attention to the rules of old-style poems such as antithesis, leveling and rhyming. However, its voice is not completely without rhythm. For example, the word "wave" in the first sentence of the first section can be regarded as "rhyme". Like "at the end of the second sentence of the second section", the length of the poem is relatively free, but the longest sentence "every wave is at its feet" is only nine words, and the shortest sentence "a wave, a wave" is six words. The rest of the sentences feel that the number of words is in the middle and relatively neat, which embodies what Mr. Wen Yiduo called "the architectural beauty of poetry." This kind of branched and relatively neat sentence pattern enables us to see the difference between it and prose and novel sentence patterns at a glance, which is not only the established practice of poetry, but also the most superficial form that distinguishes poetry from other styles.